Realization

64 HOURS TO BUILD A HOUSE

The team of the Auroville Earth Institute, along with volunteers, built the care taker’s house of the Realization project in 8 days.

The house was precast in the Auroville Earth Institute premises in about 6-7 weeks:

Blocks of the house were done by volunteers of the Realization project in October / November 2007
Precasting was done by 3-4 paid masons and a few workers from the Auroville Earth Institute from December 2007.

All materials were transported to the site in 3 days and the house was assembled in about 64 hours by a daily team of 16 paid workers and 10 to 15 volunteers. This house has been conceived as moveable and no cement mortar or cement concrete has been used to assemble the house. Only earth mortars and earth concretes were used to bind the compressed stabilised earth blocks.

This house can be dismantled with a minimum loss of materials, transported anywhere and rebuilt as such. We organised a huge construction game, a kind of Lego game for children from 11 to 60 years old. This house of 31 m2 (built up area) cost about 2.1 Lakhs Rs. including a solar system, water supply from Creativity, a wastewater system and all finishes.

We want to thank all the volunteers, paid workers who contributed to this challenge. We want also to thank the Housing Service who agreed to finance this house and people from Creativity for their kind support. The house can be seen on the side of the radial road on the way to Prayatna, north of Creativity.